Mir Farhat
SRINAGAR, July 13: The Government has increased the intake capacity of Medical Colleges in the State but the medicos say there is lack of infra-structure and it needs to be upgraded before more students are added to these colleges.
The Government last week increased the intake capacity of the Medical Colleges of Srinagar and Jammu from 100 to 150 each and that of Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, SKIMS, Medical College at Bemina from 50 to 100.
Dr Nisar-ul- Hassan, President of Doctor’s Association Kashmir, told Excelsior that first the State Government should upgrade the infrastructure and faculty in the colleges before increasing the intake capacity.
“Our hospitals have no upgraded infrastructure. We have three patients bundled on a single bed. The faculty is miniscule; it has to treat the patients and teach students as well at the same time. One doctor has to take care of over 20 patients in a day and at the same time teach 30 students. Now, with the increase in intake capacity, there will be overcrowding in the wards and the training of the students will also receive a blow,” said Dr Nisar.
“For producing efficient doctors, the colleges should have a separate faculty to train students. The colleges here have no upgraded lecture halls and laboratories. We are not in a position to accommodate additional 50 students,” Dr Nisar said.
The Principal Government Medical College (GMC), Srinagar, Dr Rafiq Pampori, admitted that due to increase in seats, the hospital will face hiccups.
“With more intake of students, our hospital will face overcrowding. But the Government has also given us three years time to upgrade infrastructure of labs and lecture halls in the associated GMC hospitals,” Dr Pampori told Excelsior.
“The Government has to create a parallel increase in the number of posts for the doctors to address the issue,” he said.
The SKIMS too is not much equipped to take the increased number of students. Dr Asif Mehraj, a senior doctor at SKIMS, says hospital is not well equipped to adjust the increased intake capacity. “The institute has huge dearth of infrastructure and faculty”, he adds.
“It (increasing intake capacity) is not a right decision. On one hand, the Government is saying that they have dearth of doctors, but for the last several years they are not recruiting doctors in the state. Instead they are putting them on contractual posts in NRHM, which is not the right remedy. Just by increasing the intake capacity of doctors without adjusting them later will not have any benefit,” Dr Mehraj told Excelsior.
Director SKIMS, Dr Showkat Ahmad Zargar, however, said the hospital is prepared to adjust the increased number of doctors.
“We have a capacity to train 160 doctors because SKIMS Soura and SKIMS Bemina together have bed strength of 950. For 100 students, we need only 500 beds; so we can adjust more number of doctors in the hospital”, he added.
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